


Piles of Paper

by casual_distance



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (brief and non-explicit), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Awkward meeting, Cop Dean, First Kiss, M/M, Minor Anna Milton/Dean Winchester, PI Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 09:29:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5738458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casual_distance/pseuds/casual_distance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean’s one night stand doesn’t go as planned, but it’s hard to be upset when he ends up with something better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Piles of Paper

They haven't even taken their pants off when Anna's phone rings and she cusses in his ear- and not the sexy kind of cussing either. She pushes off him, rolling to the side of the bed, and dangles over the edge to dig around for her purse.

She nearly kicks him in the face as she says, "I have to take this. It's work."

Dean lays there long enough to listen to her complain that _this had better be quick_ , and _what do you want_ , and _which client is that, oh that's right_.

Dean slides off the end of the bed. He doesn't bother pulling on a shirt and he leaves his pants hanging open since he doesn't expect someone else to be in the apartment. That means, of course, that Dean walks out into Anna's living room to find a guy sitting at her kitchen table, shuffling around stacks of paper and muttering to himself.

"Uh..." Dean says.

The guy barely glances at him. "Hello."

"Yeah." Dean buttons his pants. He looks down at the hall at Anna's room, wondering if he should grab his shirt or maybe tell her that a strange man has let himself into her apartment and taken over her dining room table. He hears her voice rise in pitch, "They want to do _what_?"

The man grunts. "This isn't what I expected," he says.

"Well, I wasn't expecting it either," Dean complains, turning around to find the man staring down at a piece of paper in his hands.

He squints at it, holds it further away as he tilts his head in consideration, then frowns. "I don't know why I expect anyone in this department to know what they're doing. It's not like the man knows how to hire anyone competent," he grouses. Dean doesn't know if he didn't hear Dean or if he's chosen to ignore Dean.

"He hired you," Dean points out instead-

And then blinks, taken aback, when the man glares at him like Dean has just suggested he kill the world's population of puppies.

"I most certainly was not hired by that- that-"

Dean holds up his hands. "Whoa, whoa- I didn't mean to imply anything."

The man huffs and turns back to his papers.

Dean shuffles forward, curious. "What is this?"

"I'm auditing the-" He stops and looks at Dean. He blinks and his gaze wanders over Dean's body, taking in his naked chest and the way his pants sit low on his hips. He even glances down at Dean's bare feet. He pulls his gaze back up Dean's body, but it's clinical, not sexual; he frowns at Dean. "Who are you?"

"Dean," Dean answers. He shuffles in place and crosses his arms over his chest, then drops them again. He's not exactly self-conscious about being half naked in front of a strange dude, but he's a little wary of the fact that the nakedness involves a small scattering of hickeys not caused by said dude.

The man glances toward Anna's room where her voice is barely audible. "You're a friend of Anna's?"

Dean laughs. "A certain kind of friend, yeah. We just met tonight." He winks at the man.

The man stares at him for a long moment, and then: "Oh."

Dean waits. He adds nothing further, so Dean says, "And you are?"

"Castiel. I'm Anna's brother." He looks back toward her room.

Dean holds out his hand. "Nice to meet you, Cas."

Cas shakes Dean's hand. His hand is warm and dry. Soft, too, but Dean guesses that's because he works in an office.

"So what is this again?" Dean asks after Cas lets go of his hand.

"An investigation." Cas squints at him. "I'm afraid client-"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm a cop so I know the drill."

Cas's squint eases up. "Are you?" he asks, expression shifting to one of interest.

Dean scoops his jacket up off the floor from where it had fallen when Anna pushed it and his flannel over-shirt off his shoulders to retrieve his badge out of the front pocket. His flannel is still tangled inside his jacket, so he tugs it free and puts it on while Cas inspects his badge. He runs his fingers over it carefully, like he's cataloging it. Dean recognizes the interest of someone who's never seen a badge in person even thought they would have liked to. Dean buttons the flannel closed and rolls his sleeves up to his elbows before accepting his badge back from Cas and tucking it into his jacket pocket. He drapes his jacket over the back of the couch.

"It's very pretty," Cas says.

Dean gapes at him, offended. "Did- did you just call my badge-"

Cas turns his back on Dean, but not before Dean catches the slight up-turn to the corner of his mouth. Dean huffs a laugh. He moves to stand beside Cas, watching him work. Even though he makes a point not to read the documents Cas has laid out, Dean realizes quickly that Cas is sorting them according to the content. There's a lone stack at the top of the table furthest away that's clearly a discard pile and the messiest of the piles made already. Dean doesn't comment, just watches, strangely enthralled by the quick, graceful movements of Cas's slender hands. Dean watches the way he fingers through the documents rather than what he does with documents until Cas hands him a stack of papers.

"I'm a private investigator. I've been hired to track down a case of fraud. I was on my way home when I realized I'd been seeing signs of a false business and needed to stop."

"So you stopped here?"

Cas squints at him. "Anna doesn't mind me using her apartment."

"Okay." Dean turns the stack of papers around in his hands and looks at it. "What are you looking for?"

"There was a company. Something to do with the beach. It kept popping up, but it wasn't ever tied to anything."

"A beach. Okay."

Dean skims a few documents, but isn't really sure he knows what he's looking at, so he just starts looking for beach related names. After a few minutes, he gets up and grabs a couple of beers from Anna's fridge. He hands one to Cas, but Cas just sets it aside and lets it sweat on Anna's kitchen table.

Dean works through a few more papers before he realizes what he's seeing.

"Sandover?" he asks.

Cas's head pops up, eyes going wide. "Yes!"

Cas all but snatches the paper out of Dean's hands, pouring over its contents before he shoots Dean a victorious grin.

"Sandover," Cas repeats. He sets aside Dean's paper and starts sorting through one of the piles on his side of the table. He pulls out a sheet every now and then until he has a small stack. He tosses the rest into the discard pile. The other piles he's made are stacked into one large pile.

Cas picks up the small stack he'd just made and starts flicking through them, explaining to Dean, "These are subsidiaries. We need to find all documentation related to them." He reads aloud the subsidiary names as he lays each paper out to make new stacks, and Dean commits the order to memory.

Cas works through the combined stack while Dean continues sorting through the papers Cas had handed him in the beginning, going back through the ones he'd set aside. Together they track down all instances of Sandover and subsidiaries. At some point Cas starts explaining his train of thought. He details for Dean the signs the client who'd hired him had noticed and the pieces Cas had picked up on that led him to stopping.

Dean listens carefully, and he quickly finds that Cas's enthusiasm for the case is contagious. Before Dean realizes it, they've sorted through all the papers and have begun passing theories back and forth, discarding leads that fall short, picking up hints of paths that need to be investigated more.

Dean loves it. Cas is sharp; his mind works fast and he reacts to Dean's half-finished sentences once he picks up the direction Dean is headed. Dean finds himself getting caught up in it. No one at the station is this quick. Just as smart, yes; more than once Benny has come up with a lead seemingly out of nowhere, but he usually does it after spending three hours staring at a picture of the crime scene. This is frenetic. They stand side-by-side, shoulders and hands brushing, exchanging minimal words while sorting through piles of nearly unreadable documents.

Working in tandem, focused on the clues laid out before them, it's not long before a pattern emerges. Dean notices it first. He doesn't say anything, just starts shifting documents around. Cas watches until his eyes go wide, picking up on it without a word from Dean.

He hisses through his teeth and then he's off, working from the opposite end, so that he and Dean meet in the middle. Dean grins at him as he places the last document into line. Cas smiles back, wide and beautiful, eyes crinkling, nose wrinkling. He's stunning and Dean can't help the way his eyes drop to Cas's mouth. He leans forward slightly. Cas's head tips to the side as his lips part. Then Cas clears his throat and shifts away, jerking Dean from his trance.

Cas begins to gather up the paperwork, careful to keep it in order.

"My client will be very happy," he says.

Dean frowns at him, uncertain as to where he went wrong. He was sure Cas had felt it too. He'd been the first one to step into Dean's space and more than once, Dean had felt his fingers ghost along his wrist. Now Cas has put space between them; not even his coat brushes against Dean.

"Cas..." Dean starts, but he stops when Cas straightens up. Cas meets his gaze, then turns his attention to something behind Dean.

Dean turns to look. Anna storms down the hallway, pulling a t-shirt on over her head.

"Dean, I have to- oh, Cas! What are you doing here?" She gives Cas a quick hug and then takes in the mess of her kitchen table. "Another epiphany?" she asks with an indulgent smile.

Cas returns it. "Yes. I apologize. I didn't know you had someone over."

Anna shrugs. "Well, it's not like it went anywhere, and I have to go into work now. Dean, I can drop you off at the bar to get your car."

Dean ducks his head in a nod and clears his throat. "Um, yeah, sure. I just need-"

He gestures with his thumb toward her room where his shirt and shoes are still on the floor. Anna smiles and nods. Dean walks away, feeling stunned. He can hear Anna and Cas talking as he unbuttons his flannel to pull his t-shirt on over his head. He pulls the flannel back on again and leaves it unbuttoned as he sits down on her bed to shove his feet into his boots, not bothering to tie them for the moment. They're still talking when he exits her room and heads into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

He'd forgotten about Anna. Dean rubs a hand across his face. He'd totally forgotten he was in a hook up's apartment and had hit on her brother. Holy shit. Dean splashes water across his face and uses the toilet. When he comes out Anna is nowhere to be found. Cas is tucking the last of his paperwork into a briefcase.

Dean drops down on the couch to finish lacing his boots up.

"Where's Anna?"

"She left. I told her I would take you back to your car."

"You didn't have to, man." Dean jerks on his laces to tighten them before knotting them off.

"It's no problem. I keep my own hours."

"If you're sure."

Cas tips his head in agreement and opens the door. Dean grabs his jacket from the back of the couch and pulls it on as he steps out onto the landing. Cas closes the door and locks it behind them. Dean follows him downstairs to his car, cringing at the sight of the beige Continental.

The drive to the bar is silent. Cas doesn't turn on any music, and Dean is respectful of driver's rights even if the car is horrible and he drives a little too fast.

At the bar, Cas pulls up next to the Impala. He puts the car into park, but leaves it idling and turns to face Dean. He clears his throat.

"Dean-" Cas cuts himself off and turns away again. He stares out the windshield until Dean takes pity on him.

"What's up, Cas?" he prompts.

Cas huffs and rubs at the back of his neck. "I apologize in advance if I am... overstepping, but it felt like- back at Anna's- I thought you were- were going to, um..."

"Kiss you?" Dean prompts.

Cas nods.

"I was."

"Oh." Cas frowns at the steering wheel, and Dean grimaces.

"Look, I'm sorry if it was out of line. I just- it felt like there was something there, y'know?"

Cas looks up at him, his mouth curling up slightly. "There was, but, Dean- I'm not- I don't-" Cas stops and takes a deep breath. He tries again. "I'm not like Anna. I don't take home strangers- or- I just, I don't do casual."

"Oh." Dean stares at Cas while Cas stares at his steering wheel again. "Okay." He fishes in his pocket for his wallet and pulls out his business card. "You gotta pen?"

Cas frowns at him, but gestures to the glove box. Dean finds one and scribbles his number on the back of the card. He holds it out to Cas.

"I may do casual, Cas, but I also do not-casual." Dean grins at the hopeful look on Cas's face as Cas takes the card and slides it into his jacket pocket. Dean scoots across the seat and cups Cas's cheek. He presses a quick closed-mouthed kiss to Cas's lips and whispers, "Call me, okay?"

Cas sucks in a shaky breath and nods. Dean starts to pull away, but Cas catches him by the collar and tugs him in for a deeper kiss, tilting his head and parting his lips to let Dean slip his tongue into Cas's mouth. Dean sighs and pulls away to gently butt his forehead against Cas's. He opens his eyes to find Cas grinning at him, his blue eyes shining with delight. Dean presses another quick kiss to Cas's mouth.

"Is this gonna be weird?" Dean asks when he pulls back, giving voice to the only concern he has at the moment.

"What?" Cas rumbles back.

"You know, the whole Anna thing?"

Cas blinks at him. "I'd forgotten about Anna." Cas sounds vaguely confused, but also mildly horrified. Dean starts laughing, his head dropping to Cas's shoulder.

"Oh, god, man," Dean snorts. "Forgetting your sister is almost worse than hooking up with her hook up."

Cas bounces his shoulder and jostles Dean. "You forgot her, too," Cas accuses.

"Yeah." Dean sits upright and grins. "Maybe we won't tell Anna that."

"No, probably not," Cas mutters. He pauses then shakes his head. "Definitely not."


End file.
